CoG: The Psyche of a Hero
by NorthSouthGorem
Summary: You know how the story goes. Midoriya Izuku would meet his greatest hero, All Might, and go down the path to becoming a great hero. But that day...that path had to take a slight detour. One with drastic consequences. Rated for language and body horror.


AN: Let's begin…

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the properties inherent in either Boku no Hero Academia or PSYREN.

"Speech"  
Text  
 _Thoughts_  
 _Empowered Thoughts_  
 **Super Mode**  
 **Special Attacks/Ability**

Chapter 1: The Phone Card

That day started out like any other for Midoriya Izuku. He got up in the morning, had his breakfast, said goodbye to his mother and left for school.

Along the way, he got to see a Villain in action; a giant of a man who had started terrorizing the Tatooine Train Station.

Izuku had watched in awe as the up-and-coming hero, Kamui Woods, had quickly arrived on the scene. The wooden hero had fought in a brilliant display of athletics and use of his Wooden Body Quirk, but ultimately the villain was defeated by an unexpected newcomer: a giant heroine going by the name Mt. Lady.

The young boy, ever a fanatic of all kinds of heroes, had immediately started taking notes. After all, this was the debut of a new hero! And he was there to see her in person! Surely there could be no better time to observe as much about her style and Quirk as he could, right? At least, that was his reasoning, but the young, green-haired lad would also admit that it was also because he was a major hero otaku.

An old man had noticed Izuku's note-taking and praised him for it, encouraging him to try and become a Hero himself.

The cheer those words inspired in him lifted his spirits for much of the day.

At least, until…

Alderaan Middle School

"Alright, settle down!" their teacher called out. He was a reedy, middle-aged man, going bald, with the general look of a person who had spent too many years of his life teaching adolescent children. He held up a stack of papers, saying, "Since you lot are going to be graduating this year, now's the time where you have to start thinking about your futures."

As he spoke, the students started fidgeting, Quirks causing more than a few to mutate slightly as their excitement mounted.

Then the teacher smirked, throwing the papers into the air. "Heh! I say that, but you guys all want to go into the Heroics Department, don't you?"

The students went wild, displaying their Quirks proudly. One boy pulled his own eyes out, another growing sharp blades from ahoge on his head. A girl in glasses levitated her pencil case, but otherwise kept writing.

Hidden in the rowdy crowd, Midoriya Izuku sat slumped over his desk, trying desperately not to be noticed.

"Hey, sensei!" barked a boy with blond, spiky hair. He sat at his own desk with an air of casual arrogance, his feet planted on the tabletop and leaning back in his chair. "Don't you lump me together with these rejects. There's nothin' about me comparable to them!"

Izuku flinched at the sound of his voice. _K-Kacchan's as bold as always…_ he thought, his emotions a confused mix.

The young man, Bakugou Katsuki, was one of the top students in the class, not only in smarts, but also in the quality of his Quirk. His personality, on the other hand.

"Hey! That's going too far, Katsuki!"

"That's right, that's right! Where do you get off acting so high and mighty?!"

Bakugou sneered at the rest of the class. "Shaddup, you pointless side characters! I'm headed right to the top!"

"Oh, yes, that's right," murmured the teacher, looking over a particular sheet of paper, "You're applying to Yuuei Academy, aren't you?"

Izuku froze. _Yuuei Academy?!_

The school was considered far and away the best school in Japan when it came to producing pro Heroes. The number one Hero, All Might, was the most well-known of their alumni. Of course, that also meant that their Hero course was the hardest to get into.

"Yuuei!? That top school? Isn't the entrance exam super-hard?"

"Geeze, you sure have a high opinion of yourself…"

"Hah! That's why you lot are only extras!" Bakugou barked. He leaped up onto the desk, fist clenched as he towered over the masses. "I took the mock exam and I aced it! _I'm_ the only one from this school going to Yuuei!" Sparks burst from between his curled fingers as he crowed, "I'll surpass All Might and take my place as the Number 1 hero-!"

The teacher, who was only listening with half an ear and leafing through more high school applications, murmured, "Oh, that's right. Midoriya also applied to Yuuei."

Izuku twitched. Bakugou froze. The rest of the class _stared._

"PFFFFTHAHAHAHAHA!" And then everyone burst out laughing.

"Midoriya?!" asked one boy derisively.

A girl nearby giggled. "No way that could happen."

The green-haired boy fidgeted, looking increasingly uncomfortable under the weight of the comments and mocking laughter.

"Yuuei's hero course isn't something you can just get into with studying, you know!"

At this, he stood up, looking frantic. "Th-that's not true!" he protested shakily, "They-they repealed that policy just recently-!"

*BOOM!*

A hand slapped down on Izuku's desk, accompanied by a literal explosion of light and sound that fractured the wooden top and sent the freckled boy reeling back onto the floor. Bakugou stood over him, his palm still smoking. "You good-for-nothing Deku!" he snarled, "You of all people…even compared to all these minor characters, you're just a _nobody!_ You've got no Quirk at all! So why are you even trying to get into the same arena as me?"

"W-w-wait a second, not so fast, Kacchan!" squeaked Izuku, scuttling back on his butt until his back hit the wall, "It's not like that at all! I wasn't think of competing with you…" his eyes flicked away and he continued weakly, "It's just…I've dreamed of this all my life, s-so…y'know, there's no harm in trying…"

He knew that such a tone would only invite more verbal abuse, but he couldn't help but want to justify himself. And sure enough…

"Haaah?!" drawled the explosive young man, smoke wafting dangerously from his palms, "No harm in trying? What a half-assed answer!"

While none of the other students added anything on top of that, every last one of them fixed their curly-haired classmate with a look. Though they were not all the same, especially with the bizarreness of their Quirks, it felt as though Izuku were being crushed by a malevolent derision. Katsuki was the only one to speak, but their stares all said the same thing as him:

 **"What can someone like you even do?"**

To this, he had no answer. He looked down, cowed into silence.

And yet, Midoriya Izuku's resolve did not even waver for more than a second.

PsyHe

A few hours later found the students packing up to go home. Izuku was in the process of putting away his notebook, but had paused to check his phone. _Oh!_ he thought, his face brightening, _That incident from this morning is all over the news! I'll have to check it out on the way…_ He reached out to pick up his book, only for it to be snatched up off his desk.

"Hold on, Deku." It was Bakugou, the notebook hanging from the fingers of one hand. His eyes were narrowed at his classmate in distaste. "I still have a score to settle with you." He held out the book for a pair of his hangers on to look at.

"'Hero Analysis for the Future, No. 13,'" read one boy incredulously, his fingers elongating unnaturally, "Pfhah! Jeez, this guy just can't take a hint, can he? And thirteen?! What the hell, there's a limit to being a fan of heroes, ya know!"

Izuku's eyes widened and he reached out, pleading, "G-give it back!"

Bakugou's only answer was, without even changing his expression, to clap his hands together on the notebook, a loud *bang* and a blast of light and heat scorching it in an instant. Then he nonchalantly tossed it out the window.

"GAH!" The green-haired boy ran to window to watch the smoking book fall. "Th-that's too mean…"

"You know," said the blond boy coolly, "They always get stories about the top heroes from their younger days." His gaze sharpened. "'He was the only one from his dead-end middle school to get into Yuuei Academy.' That's how my story's gonna start. There's no room in there for anyone else; I'm a perfectionist, ya see."

 _S-so petty,_ was the thought that went through both Izuku's head and that of Bakugou's lackey.

Then Bakugou smiled and clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder. Izuku froze, eyes fixing on that hand as trickles of smoke leaked from between the fingers "That being said… _don't go to Yuuei, you Quirkless fuckup."_

When the green-haired boy didn't answer, he smirked and released him, walking away. Izuku remained still, trembling slightly.

"Geez, at least try and say something back," sighed the boy with Bakugou.

Another boy snorted. "He can't. Even though he's a third-year now, he still can't face reality."

Izuku clenched his fists, but remained silent.

Just as he reached the door, Bakugou stopped, brow furrowed as if something occurred to him. "Hm…now that I think about it, there is one method that could work. Hey, Deku! If you wanna be a hero so bad, here's what you do…" he turned to leer at his victim, his expression twisted with malevolence, _"Pray with all your might to be born with a Quirk in your next life and take a leap of faith off the school roof!"_

Izuku whirled around, his teeth bared in a grimace of anger-

A firecracker of small sparks burst around Bakugou's fingers. "Got something to say?"

He stayed where he was.

PsyHe

Izuku trudged along the side of the school building, his eyes downcast with bitterness. "Moron!" he muttered under his breath, "If I really jumped, you'd be guilty of instigating a suicide! Then you'd never become a hero!"

A light splashing drew his attention to a small koi pond, with the fish in question nibbling at a particularly soggy, burnt rectangle. "...That's not fish food," he said quietly, extracting it from the water, "It's my notebook, you idiots." He pried it open, trying to see if he could salvage any of the notes. Miraculously, they seemed unharmed by the abuse the pages had been put through. "...Idiots," he repeated.

*Clatter*

Something slipped from in between the pages and fell to the ground. Izuku blinked, broken from his dark thoughts by the sound of plastic on asphalt. "Huh?" he looked around, then checked under his notebook. Lying at his feet was a red card. "Where did that come from?" he wondered aloud, picking it up and turning it over.

Moisture beaded the plastic surface, though that was a minor concern compared to its design. The majority of the card was colored a bright red, but the top left corner was black, the edges ragged as if the red had been worn away. Across the bottom, in large, black, English letters in a blocky, also worn font was the word PSYREN, the R turned backwards. Dominating the right half was a mysterious symbol: a curved, hooked line that looked almost like a closed eye, with a vertical spike extending from above and below it. Six more spikes, radiated out from the bottom at different angles, though they were shorter. The outer spikes led to another pair of slanted lines, bringing to mind a simplistic pair of wings.

"What is this?" Izuku asked himself, tracing a pair of notches carved into the edge, "Could it be…a phone card? For a pay phone?" The boy knew that the public phones could take special cards. Once, his mother had shown him an old card she'd found, with the same notches. "Did someone lose this?" he pondered, turning it over in his hand, "Is it a custom card? It's a pretty unique design…and what's this word supposed to be? P-S-Y…Aaaah, how's that pronounced?" he groaned to himself, scratching his head agitatedly, "And what should I even do with this? Actually how the heck did it get in my journal? Even if it was dropped in the fish-pond, it would've sunk to the bottom, but my notebook was floating…"

As he muttered to himself, he wandered away from the school, leaving through the front gate. He could pick apart the mysteries of the strange card on the way home.

Some time later during his walk, Izuku glanced up, stopping as he realized there was a payphone right next to him on the sidewalk. "Eh? Have I gone that far already?" he asked out loud, looking around. He gave the phone a speculative eye, then looked at the card. "Hm…maybe if I use the card, I could get in touch with whoever lost it?" he pondered, "Or maybe I could call the police to tell them it's missing…right?"

But even before his own reasoning solidified in his head and left his mouth, Izuku found himself feeding the red and black card into the appropriate slot on the payphone. "Ah-!" he gasped, trying to pull back, but the machine took over and the card vanished. "Oh man…" he sighed, "I hope that was the right thing to do…"

Suddenly, the phone rang, making him jump. "What the-? I haven't even put any numbers in yet!" Nevertheless, he picked up the receiver. "Um, h-hello? Th-this is-"

"Greetings!" chirped an artificial-sounding voice, "Con-nec-tion Established! You have reached the PSYREN immigration office!"

"…Eh?" Izuku blinked in bewilderment at the phone in his hand, "An automated answer?"

"We will now commence the immigration examination. Please press 1 to answer yes, 2 for no."

The boy blanched. "E-eh?! W-wait, that's not anything that I'm interested in-!"

Later, when he thought back to that moment, Izuku would wonder why he hadn't simply hung up.

"Question 1: Are you a Japanese person older than twelve years?"

"Huh? That's a strange one to start out with- *beep* -Ah. I answered…"

"Question 2: Are you worried about the future of your country?"

Izuku frowned. _Worried? Who could be worried with All Might looking out for us?_ He dialed No.

"Question 3: Do you have a Quirk?"

He winced. No.

"Question 4: Have you ever felt an oppressive presence around a strange Quirk user?"

…Yes.

"Question 5: Are you currently feeling ill?"

He blinked. "No, of course not…" He pressed No again.

And so it continued, with the questions becoming stranger and stranger by the moment.

"Question 12: Do you always talk and mumble to yourself?"

"Question 24: Do you have close friends?"

"Question 30: Have you ever blown anything up?"

"Question 31: Have you ever had boiling water poured on your face?"

Izuku felt the hairs prickling in his scalp as the automated questioner continued asking those bizarre question in the same calm voice. Nevertheless, he answered them one at a time with a yes or a no.

"Question 60: Are you looking forward to going to high school?"

 _Yes._ Before, Izuku might have been confused at how specific that question was, but the strangeness of the prior ones distracted him.

"Question 61: Have you thought a lot about what you want to do with your life?"

Yes.

"Question 62: You hate your nickname."

He froze, a chill crawling down his back. _That…what did it just say?_

Indeed, he hated the mocking nickname Kacchan had given him years ago. _Deku._ Taken from the kanji in his given name, it literally meant 'useless person.'

 _There wasn't any question about nicknames before!_

Slowly, he pressed Yes.

"Question 63: You never knew your father."

Yes.

"You bottle up feelings of resentment towards your mother, for those words she never said to you when you came back from the doctor."

Izuku started shivering. "This…why is it…it's not even asking anything anymore!"

"Yes or no?"

"N-no! Of course not! E-even if it wasn't what I…" He quickly hit the 2.

"Deep down, you have your doubts about your own conviction. You know that just smarts can't cut it in the world of pro heroes."

There was a clatter as the receiver dangled limply from its cord. Izuku had leaped away from the pay phone, looking wildly around. "W-who's there?!" he cried, checking for any sign of movement, "Th-this isn't funny!"

But there was no one around. The green-haired boy was completely alone on the street.

Shaking, sweating profusely, he returned to the phone and picked it back up.

"Where the hell did you go?!" Only for the cool female voice to screech angrily at him. "Get back here, you little shit! You think this thing is easy for me either?! I needed someone useful, but it just _had_ to be someone like you to find that damn card! If you're gonna puss out from some personal questions, then fuck off and let someone better take over!"

Izuku flinched, shocked by the sudden change in tone. But then, before he could stop himself, he clenched his free fist. "I don't know who you are," he said, his voice coming out awkwardly shrill, "And I don't understand what you're talking about…but if you need someone, then I'll do my best! Even if I'm just a useless 'Deku!' Even if I'm Quirkless! I don't care what you think of me, so just keep asking your questions!"

Silence reigned over the street as those frustrated, heated words spilled from his mouth. For a moment, the boy worried that he'd gone too far and offended the mysterious person on the other end of the line.

Then…

"...You know that smarts aren't enough. Yes or no?" The woman's voice was back to its artificial tone.

Izuku closed his eyes. "...Yes," he whispered, "I know." He reached out to dial Yes.

But the voice spoke up again before he could press the button. "Final Question: Do you want to save the world?"

He blinked. "...What?" he asked. Of all the questions he'd thought he'd be subjected to, that was not one of them.

And then a new voice issued from the receiver. Another woman, her voice faintly muffled by static. "Please…I'm sorry, whoever you are, but please… _help us."_

An old video flashed through his mind. Footage of the debut of a hero who had saved hundreds of lives with an undaunted smile.

Slowly, shakily, but surely, that same grin appeared on Izuku's face. "Alright!" And without hesitation, he hit the 1 button and hung up.

PsyHe

AN: And thus began the crossover that no one thought to ask for. Well, technically I guess it's more a fusion fic, what with the things that would require Nemesis Q to exist in the Boku no Hero universe…

Not much more to say here, so I'll just end off with the usual: if you have any thoughts or questions, please leave a review or send me a PM.

North South out.


End file.
